Stories of the Day

The Democrats Really Want Your Money Because they Have A lot Of Free Stuff to Give away

Free stuff, free stuff, everywhere! Thank you President Obama! “Fresh from offering “free” health care, “free” phones and “free” food to the masses, he’s upped the bribery to “free” community college tuition and “free” child care. It’s not that the Clintons oppose any of these; they just need to affect moderation in case Hillary runs for president and has to knock back boilermakers again with the good old boys in Pennsylvania taverns.

Of course they are. They Dems have never met a tax they didn’t like… “If you work for a living, Barack Obama is looking to rob you — again.

This time he and his Democrat kleptocrats are after your 529s. Those are the states’ college-savings plans, where you can invest money you’ve earned (and paid taxes on) into mutual funds for your children’s college educations.

Then, when you need the money to pay those bloated tuitions, you can withdraw the 529 funds, tax-free.

You begin to see the problem, at least from the point of view of Barack Obama. No. 1, you actually worked for the money — that makes you a bitter clinger right there. As Granny Warren says, you didn’t build that business.

“Why did I find that particular question a compelling topic for a column? Because it’s a question we may have to ask ourselves. As I observed when I first wrote about the plan, the very fact that we are discussing taxation of educational savings — redistributing educational subsidies downward — indicates that the administration has started scraping the bottom of the barrel when seeking out money to fund new programs. Why target a tax benefit that goes to a lot of your supporters (and donors), that tickles one of the sweetest spots in American politics (subsidizing higher education), and that will hit a lot of people who make less than the $250,000 a year that has become the administration’s de facto definition of “rich”?

They’re trying to get at your retirement savings too. “Obama claims this is just part of his plan to make the rich “pay their fair share” by closing tax loopholes, but as Reynolds points out, Obama’s plan would hit the middle class hardest.

“This doesn’t hurt the very rich — who just pay for college out of pocket — or the poor, who get financial aid, but it’s pretty rough on the middle- and upper-middle class,” he notes.

“When a government is desperate for cash,” writes Reynolds, “it goes after the middle class, because that’s where the money is.”

This isn’t the first time Obama and his fellow Democrats have considered taxing savings plans to finance big government, and it almost certainly won’t be the last.

As we wrote back in 2011, Democrats were looking at ways to tax what was then more than $9 trillion in 401(k) and IRA assets as a way to finance more government spending. Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, for example, suggested cutting or ending the tax deduction to pay for an expanded Saver’s Credit. Such ideas won’t get any traction with Republicans in control of Congress. But once proposed, even dumb ideas like these will just keep floating around Washington until they find fertile soil.” Obama’s 529 Tax Plan Is Just The Beginning

It never stops. “Likewise, Obama proposes to tax the appreciation on inherited homes. When you sell property at a profit, you pay capital gains on the difference between the basis (what you paid) and what you sell it for. (Obama also proposes to increase the capital gains rate). That’s not a big issue for most middle class people, because right now if your parents leave you their house, you get what’s called a “step-up” in basis.

That means that the basis isn’t what your parents paid for the house decades ago, but rather what it was worth when you inherited it. Thus, the appreciation your property experienced while your parents owned it comes to you tax-free. For many families, that appreciation is their biggest inheritance. Now, subject to some exemptions Obama plans to tax those gains, and other gains via inheritance.” Obama goes where the money is to pay for ‘free’ education programs – your savings account.

Please someone tell these Libs that we’re running out of “other people’s money.” “In other words, a liberal group has proposed spending hundreds of billions—at minimum—on expanding Obamacare programs. And other than some suggestions about using government-imposed price controls—“direct intervention in pricing may ultimately be necessary”—the Families USA report contains precious little on paying for these expanded entitlements. It may have answered the “What?” when it comes to proposed “fixes” to the law, but it did not answer the “How much?” And as the law remains divisive, and federal debt continues to rise, the latter question must remain on the public agenda for some time to come.” Who’s Going to Pay for This Obamacare Wish List?

And this is before all the proposals outlined in the above article. “Buried deep inside the latest CBO budget outlook report there is some shocking (by which I mean not shocking to anyone who has been paying attention) information on the effects of ObamaCare. You can forget about all the promises that were made by the administration and their Democrat allies during the debate… they were lying clearly inaccurate in their estimates. So how bad is it? The Daily Mail came out with the first report.

The World’s On Fire

Obama plays while the world burns. “It would be hard to overstate how poorly things are going for the United States around the world. Iran moves steadily toward acquiring nuclear weapons, with the apparent approval of the Obama administration. Iraq, once hailed as one of the Obama administration’s greatest successes by Joe Biden, is now largely occupied by ISIS. The carnage in Syria continues. The government of Yemen, a key ally in the war against Islamic terror, has fallen. In Nigeria, Boko Haram slaughters thousands and now controls much of Africa’s richest country.

And Russia continues to chip away at Ukraine. Let’s pause on this one for a moment. Having absorbed Crimea, Russia is now concentrating its fire on the eastern half of Ukraine, perhaps with a plan to secure Crimea via a land bridge to Russia. There is no longer any pretense about the fact that Russian soldiers have invaded Ukraine and are fighting alongside separatist rebels. The New York Times reports that the war in Ukraine is “exploding.” The Kiev Postprofiles Ukrainian soldiers struggling to hold onto the strategically important city of Debaltseve. Stratfor issues a “red alert” and speculates about Russia’s strategic intentions.

It is times like this when a country needs leadership, and, whatever else you might think about him, Barack Obama has never been accused of being a leader.” THE WORLD BURNS, AMERICA FIDDLES

Obama has egg on his face. “White House fear is totally understandable. If you had traded five key terrorist leaders for one American G.I. and your hero turned out to be a deserter who willingly left his post and his unit and went over to the enemy in time of war, wouldn’t you be embarrassed? Worse, had you quite publicly invited said deserter’s parents to stroll congenially and intimately through the White House Rose Garden with you, and then had that event broadcast round the world, wouldn’t you be embarrassed?

However, their fear is in no way defensible. If the president is embarrassed by his reckless diplomacy and his foolishness in courting the family of a possible traitor, so be it. Were I the president, heads would be rolling for allowing such a public relations disaster to occur and for making me look like such a naïve fool. Of course, the possibility exists that the president was fully aware of a completed Army investigation that had concluded that Bergdahl was a deserter and that this was merely another one of Obama’s long-middle-finger gestures to the nation he purportedly leads.” Sand-Kicker in Chief

Making Americans less safe one prisoner swap at a time. “Putting aside the atrocious negotiating skills of Team Obama for agreeing to trade five Taliban operatives for one American soldier, whose platoon mates believe he deserted them, the message President Obama sent to our enemies is that the U.S. is willing to ignore decades of previous U.S. policy and talk about deals and swaps. Sadly, the bad guys now know there can be a reward for having something the U.S. wants. They know what they need to do in order to get the attention of President Obama and his national security team.

That’s quite a legacy our president is carving out for himself, eh? “We are now in an equally turbulent age of rising empires — mostly due to a new American indifference and passivity. Or, to put it more exactly, President Obama believes that his own legacy rests with avoiding all confrontations overseas, withdrawing as many troops as he can, and cutting the defense budget as much as Congress will allow so as to use the funds to address supposed inequality at home. If chaos results abroad, he can either blame his predecessor, George W. Bush, or assume that his successor will have to deal with what he wrought — or both. Obama is running out the clock of his presidency on the premise of Après moi, le déluge.” Barack Obama, Empire Builder: Not since the 1930s and early 1940s have we seen so many malevolent empires on the rise.

“Who says President Obama doesn’t promote bipartisanship? His complicity in Iran’s moving toward nuclear bombs has alarmed some top Senate Democrats enough to get them to join Republicans in opposition to the Obama administration’s potentially suicidal foreign policy.” Obama’s Suicidal Iran Policy

“But how sad that this delusional little man is our President. And how Mr. Putin must sneer when he considers who he is up against. God help us.” WHY CAN’T HE TELL THE TRUTH?

Obama vs. Netanyahu

His ego is going to get a lot of people killed. “Barack Hussein Obama, however, wants Netanyahu to butt out of his “delicate negotiations,” which Obama claims have yielded real and tangible results. For Obama, this is a clinical debate in a Harvard Law School classroom. He is convinced that the weight of his charisma and his mastery of speech will win the day.

Most of the Congress doubts Barack Obama’s strategy. The Iranians are open and vocal in their rejection of Obama’s rhetoric. They have not slowed one bit. Obama has hung his hopes on empty Iranian commitments. There is not a credible agency or international group or intelligence service anywhere that can reliably state that Obama’s negotiations have produced a whit of impact upon the Iranians as they press forward to develop the bomb.

It always comes down to Obama’s ego. “Thou shall not cross Dear Leader.

With their guttersniping failing to stop Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned March speech before Congress, White House aides are unloading their full arsenal of bile.

“He spat in our face publicly, and that’s no way to behave,” one Obama aide told an Israeli newspaper. “Netanyahu ought to remember that President Obama has a year and a half left to his presidency, and that there will be a price.”

It is pointless to say petty threats do not become the Oval Office. Trying to instruct this White House on manners recalls what Mark Twain said about trying to teach a pig to sing: It wastes your time and annoys the pig.

Enemies. “There is only one world leader whom Barack Obama despises: Benjamin Netanyahu. And now, Obama is putting his campaign organization where his mouth is. (snip)

Obviously Obama’s national field director would not go to Israel to try to defeat Netanyahu without Obama’s approval and encouragement. As for “One Voice,” what do we know about it other than the fact that it is foreign funded? Breitbart says that “One Voice” is “reportedly funded by American donors,” but is there any assurance that Iran, for example, is not contributing to or controlling “One Voice”?

“The Obama administration is throwing a hissy fit over the invitation extended by Speaker Boehner to Prime Minister Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress over the threat posed by Iran. Given the existential nature of the threat posed by Iran to Israel, one might have entertained hopes that the Obama administration would behave otherwise, but those hopes would have been foolish.” AMB. DERMER SPEAKS

Protocol suddenly matters to this president. “The White House has now become a stickler for protocol, especially when it comes to relations between the two political branches.

The new persnicketiness arises from House speaker John Boehner’s invitation to Israeli prime minister Bibi Netanyahu to speak before a joint session of Congress in March. The invite is being denounced as a major breach and new low in Washington because he didn’t, as had been the traditional practice with such invitations, coordinate with the White House.

As far as violations of the separation of powers in the Obama era, it’s hard to see how this even comes close to registering. Maybe Emily Post wouldn’t approve, and with a different administration it would be worth honoring every courtesy, but we are far beyond that now.

Other Interesting Stories of the Day

Always follow the money. “A shadowy Bermudan company that has funneled tens of millions of dollars to anti-fracking environmentalist groups in the United States is run by executives with deep ties to Russian oil interests and offshore money laundering schemes involving members of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

They won’t give it up because they know in an egalitarian society there are always elites at the top. And that’s their ultimate aspiration. “ The funny thing is, the super-rich who take this position never seem to want to do the obvious thing to rectify it – to give up a large portion of their wealth to contribute to increasing the equality of income. No, they usually want others to do that. Once liberals become wealthy, they want taxes raised to make it harder for other people to become wealthy; they, already super-wealthy, either have accountants to help hide their wealth in trusts or simply aren’t bothered because they already have so much money.

What else is there that could explain why Warren Buffet, or the owners of the New York Times, or Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, all of whom constantly complain about income inequality, don’t simply give up 95% of their assets to the government or charity? Because they don’t want to give up their own money. They want everyone else to live live in an equal, egalitarian society, but not themselves.” Rich people upset about being rich

“I’ve seen them both in action. They are a joke. “For news junkies, those of us addicted to the daily push and pull of national and international politics, our State Department’s spokespersons, Marie Harf and Jen Psaki, provide the same brand of entertainment for conservatives that Saturday Night Live does for liberals. Each of these women gives comically imbecilic non-answers to whoever is asking her questions, whether they are asked by the WH press corps or television news anchors. Both seem to have been scooped up from some snooty private high school where they bullied all the girls not of their self-perceived superior status; they are both naturally rude and condescending. Neither one of them speaks as if she has been to university, although both most certainly have. Clearly neither of them has ever taken a public speaking course. Neither is remotely articulate, savvy, or quick-witted. They are both fools the press corps and news anchors must suffer in silence. They are also typical of the caliber of people who populate the Obama administration: incompetent.” Harf-Psaki is an insidious disease

2012 Presidential Election

If you’re a political junkie, click on over to read the whole thing. “DES MOINES — As the Freedom Summit marks the unofficial start of the 2016 Republican presidential campaign here in Iowa, the race is already too sprawling, with too many characters and too many crosscurrents, to have a single theme. But here are a dozen keys to understand what is happening now:

1. The candidates who have run before — Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum — all think they can get their teams back together for another race. They can’t. Each man has been in touch with staff and supporters from 2008 and 2012, with the assumption that the people who were willing to work for them back then will do so again in 2016. But the world has changed; issues have changed and new candidates have emerged. Moderates who backed Romney now have Jeb Bush and Chris Christie to consider, while conservatives who backed Huckabee and Santorum have Ted Cruz and Ben Carson. Even if the veterans run again, they won’t be able to recreate what they had before. They’ll have to do something different. (snip)

12. You know what Bobby Jindal said about Muslim “no-go zones” in Europe, a statement that resulted in Jindal being criticized and mocked by mainstream commentators? It turns out many social conservatives in Iowa really liked it. To them, Jindal was warning about the danger of enclaves of unassimilated Muslim populations in an age of Islamic radicalism, a problem they fear could be in store for the United States. Jindal, who is himself the model of an assimilated American from an immigrant family, not only did not suffer from his remarks but instead benefited from them.

Interesting. “Krauthammer was asked by fellow panelist Steve Hayes how he would allocate his money if he was given $100 to go Las Vegas and bet on who will be the nominee. Krauthammer put the most money, $40 on Rubio, with $30 going to Jeb Bush, $15 to Scott Walker, and the remaining $15 on booze. He added “he’s [Rubio] my underestimated dark horse candidate who threads his way, young, energetic. He’s got a program and I think if he runs against Hillary, the contrast say the vigor, the energy that Kennedy-esque idea will be be a major one.” KRAUTHAMMER: RUBIO IS MOST LIKELY TO WIN GOP NOMINATION

“Each man improved his position in the GOP field, but the potential candidate with the most improved standing in Iowa — if only because she started from virtually nowhere — would have to be Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard CEO and failed California Senate candidate who’s now considering the longest-of-longshot runs for the White House. (snip)

For example, can one debunk the “war on women” and go after bloated government at the same time? Fiorina found a way when she described running into top Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett at a recent TV appearance.

First, Fiorina asked Jarrett about the gender pay gap at the White House. Then: “I asked her further why, if she was so concerned about equal pay for equal work, why the White House was not tackling the seniority system, which is in place in every federal government bureaucracy and every union shop.” Relying on an sclerotic seniority system not only discourages innovation in government, Fiorina argued, it also disadvantages women who find themselves stuck behind less competent but more senior male colleagues.

Fiorina used her career perspective again to attack liberals who burden business with regulations that purport to ensure a fairer marketplace but end up giving big firms an advantage over smaller ones.” A surprise star in Iowa’s presidential sweepstakes

“Today we need much more than honest and competent governance of the vast leviathan of government and institutional leftism. We need a leader who can fight the rhetorical war against the establishment and who is not concerned about pleasing the left at all. If we settle for less than that, if we accept a RINO president who will work to compromise with the evil that is leftism and the monster that is Washington, then we will find ourselves not closer to victory, but rather drifting slowly, but definitely, in the direction of disaster.” The danger of RINO presidents

“’Scott Walker has the blueprint for winning and winning consistently and winning big in a blue state with conservative principles that are offered with absolutely no excuses,” Limbaugh remarked. “The left, the Democrat Party, threw everything at Scott Walker trying to destroy him. They did everything they could. He not only withstood it all, he survived and triumphed over all of it.’” Limbaugh: Scott Walker ‘The Blueprint’ For GOP If They Are ‘Serious About Beating The Left’

Obama only wants to the government to have guns. The people are more compliant that way. “LAS VEGAS—Banned from financial services that are essential to running a business, firearms sellers attending the world’s largest gun show last week in Las Vegas spoke out against the government’s controversial program known as Operation Choke Point.

The American Dream

Is this what Obama meant by “Hope and Change”? “African Americans for decades flocked to Prince George’s County to be part of a phenomenon that has been rare in American history: a community that grew more upscale as it became more black.

The county became a national symbol of the American Dream with a black twist. Families moved into expansive new homes, with rolling lawns, nearby golf courses and, most of all, neighbors who looked like them. In the early 2000s, home prices soared — some well beyond $1 million — allowing many African Americans to build the kind of wealth their elders could only imagine.

American Sniper

Bravo sir! “Rupert Murdoch says he’s a huge fan of American Sniper, and anyone who thinks otherwise — “Hollywood leftists” in particular — are completely out of touch with America.

Murdoch just weighed in on the left vs. right controversy surrounding the film, after Seth Rogenand Michael Moore both initially appeared to criticize American Sniper on Twitter, sparking a national debate in the process.

The mogul, who owns 20th Century Fox movie studios and routinely takes to Twitter to praise Fox films, offered his support for the Clint Eastwood film, which was released by rival Warner Bros.

“There’s a real opportunity for a new studio that focuses on making films like this. Will some rich guy put some money into that instead of funding some lame Karl Rove initiative? It would do more good. . . .” “The backlash to that patriotism and the things the country is lacking these days didn’t take very long to form and it goes a lot deeper than snide tweets from Michael Moore and Seth Rogen. Academy members were reportedly passing around an article from the New Republic, whose author had not actually seen the movie, but still denounced it for not showing Chris Kyle as a bigoted murderer.

Arizona

Can I have my campaign donation back please? “Flake said he agrees with the Obama administration and U.S. allies that additional sanctions against Iran could reverse progress in international talks to curtail the country’s nuclear program.

“The purpose of these multilateral sanctions, which have been effective, is to bring them to the negotiating table,” Flake told The Arizona Republic. ‘What strikes me as odd is once they are at the table, and they are complying with the interim agreement, why we would risk pushing them from the table.’” Flake sides with Obama on Iran and Cuba

Arizona State University reaches new lows… “Today’s outrageous violation of common sense and high educational standards comes to us via Campus Reform, which discovered a course on the “problem of whiteness” at Arizona State University.

At Arizona State University (ASU), students can now learn about the “problem of whiteness” in America.

The public university is offering an English class to its students this semester called “Studies in American Literature/Culture: U.S. Race Theory & the Problem of Whiteness.”

According to the class description on ASU’s website, students will be reading The Possessive Investment in Whiteness, Critical Race Theory, Everyday Language of White Racism, Playing in the Dark, and The Alchemy of Race and Rights.” The Unbearable Lightness of Whiteness

The Economy

“A new study finds that 60% of the jobs gained last year were due to the fact that Republicans managed to block one of President Obama’s key “middle class economics” policies in Congress.

Let’s dial the clock back to December 2013. At that point, 1.3 million faced an end to the federal unemployment benefits that Congress had extended repeatedly in the wake of the recession. (snip)

Now Obama is running around talking about how 2014 was “a breakthrough year for America” and how the economy is “creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999.” But the only reason he can make such claims is because he failed to get what he wanted.

The Left

A book review: The Pity Party: A Mean-spirited Diatribe Against Liberal Compassion. “Progressives will always claim that no matter how badly their plans go wrong, at least their terrible policies were well-intentioned.

The regimes that shot orphans, starved entire cities into submission and committed genocide were “caring” in comparison to the heartless Dickensian capitalists who did nothing for the poor except create cheap products and jobs. They might have killed millions, but their red hearts were in the right place. (snip)

Every crime, from Green Energy corruption to totalitarian health care regulations, is justified by an appeal to compassion. But the truly compassionate attribute is not the arrogant paternalism of leftist policymakers, but the empowerment of our fellow man through political and economic freedom.” The Pity Party

“Our governments and our business and political elites are not mainly made up of stupid people. One of the shocking things about getting to know people in government, whether in elected office or in the bureaucracies, is that they are mostly bright, well-intentioned, and honest. Together they represent a sterling example of one of the most important and least understood of modern social paradoxes: None of us is as dumb as all of us.” None of us is as dumb as all of us.” Davos’s Destructive Elites

“The left is infested with politicians who have engaged in no productive activity at all, in some cases it seems over their entire lives, except in the surreal universe of leftism, which deems faceless regulators, well-connected litigators, and boorish professors “productive” people.

These leftists do not make war on the “rich,” a class in which they are fully and greedily represented, but upon the “productive rich,” the people who heal the sick, produce the oil and gas, build and operate the businesses, and otherwise make life better and more prosperous for ordinary people.

There is, of course, a latent jealously these plutocratic leftists feel toward those who by honest sweat get rich. The actual creation of wealth is a mystery to these leftist plutocrats, and what they cannot understand, of course, they fear and despise.” The Plutocratic Left

The Middle Class

“There is no shortage of ideas on what to do about the shrinking Middle Class from the left or the right. Redistribution won’t work. What we need is a path that we can follow to create more and better jobs so that today’s young people can begin to build wealth and enter the Middle Class with some sense of security and optimism.

The Pope

Calling out the Leftist Pope. “Under the tutelage of a pope who ascribes to himself an omnicompetency in geopolitical and scientific matters, the Catholic Church is at risk of a death walk of its own. Its descent into a left-leaning political entity is underway while we circle the wagons and measure our tones. It is a serious matter when a pope confuses political and ideological symbols for religious ones.

We’ve got a terrific line up for our annual Christmas program. First up will be the Ignite Barbershop Quartet. Ignite began singing together after a quartet matching party in November 2015. They are all Champion members of Region 21’s Scottsdale Chorus and they will be singing for us!

After lunch, Congressional District 6 congressman, Representative David Schweikart, will talk to us about what’s happening in Washington DC, and provide us with a status of the Tax Bill working its way through the House of Representatives and Senate.

Finally, member Julia Graham will install our new 2018/2019 officers. We look forward to seeing you and be sure to bring a friend or two or three!